Inside Out: An Alternate Ending - 25 Years Later
by TMJonsson
Summary: This alternate ending to the Disney/Pixar film "Inside Out" takes place immediately after the final scene with a 25 year jump. Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear have a very important mission that they want to see through to the end.


At the conclusion of Inside Out, but before the 'End Credits montage', we see the screen cut to black, and then emerges:

 **25 years later…**

We then hard cut to an extreme closeup of a woman's face. She appears to be in her mid 30's and has the same striking eyes as our protagonist Riley. Through solely the expression of her eyes we sense intense determination but it is clearly clouded with fear and anxiety. She forces several strained blinks, as if to attempt to snap out of the emotions trying to drag her down.

The scene shifts back to Headquarters. The woman in the closeup, of course, is Riley. We see our old friends Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear at the upgraded Control Console, and they too have grown in the last 25 years, they now look strikingly similar to her Mom's emotions from 25 years earlier, without the glasses. But Joy is conspicuously missing from the Headquarters.

"Where is she?! **THIS IS TAKING TOO LONG.** " Anger yells, flames flickering wildly.

"She's not going to make it! Something _terrible_ happened!" Fear shrieks.

Disgust points out that "This is SO Joy… Ugh."

Sadness simply allows the simple look of hope that she was wearing dissolve into a single tear.

Just as it appears that all hope has been lost and that whatever Joy was searching for is going to arrive too late to resolve this unknown crisis, we hear a loud ***THUNK** * behind the Control Console. We see Joy flung into Headquarters through a Recall Tube. She is carrying the same bag that Bing Bong once gave her to help carry Riley's Core Memories. Joy quickly runs over to the others.

"I found it! I FOUND IT! Is it too late? It's too late, isn't it?"

Sadness looks up, wipes away her tear and runs over to Joy, giving her a big hug.

"No Joy, you made it just in time." She smiles.

We then see all 5 emotions standing overhead from the perspective of the bag. Joy opens the bag and they each slowly reach a single hand down towards the contents. Together as one, they lift up a single memory orb. It is a shadowy dark grey, covered in dust and cracks, clearly it has long been abandoned to the pits of the Memory Dump. Very gently, the 5 emotions place the memory orb onto the Control Console. For several agonizing seconds, the orb shows no signs of memory and no signs of life as they each hold their hand on its faded surface.

Joy's expression of delight upon realizing she wasn't late begins to falter, and doubt starts to creep in...

Suddenly, we see Anger take a deep breath, and as if releasing a heavy weight he removes his hand from the orb. Joy and Sadness look at each other in confusion seeing this, but Fear and Disgust share a gaze with each other as well. With an audible sigh, followed by an unburdened smile, Disgust removes her hand from the orb as well.

Joy and Sadness are now completely vexed by what is happening, and Fear is downright terrified that the plan they had been working so hard on is falling to pieces when they were so close to accomplishing their mission.

"What are you two _**DOING?!**_ "

"The only thing we _can_ do, Fear." Anger responds.

"This mission isn't about us anymore. It's about them," Disgust gestures to Joy and Sadness. "They were the only ones there. We have to trust them to handle this. We all helped get to this moment, but only Joy and Sadness can help Riley _right now._ "

"But… But we had a PLAN! You can't just change everything at the last second!"

"Don't be afraid, Fear… Joy and I will be extra safe. It's going to be OK, _I promise._ " Sadness chimes in, with a reassuring smile.

We then see Fear slowly remove his hand from the orb. Trembling at first, but then steadying itself the further from the orb it gets. Anger, Disgust and Fear put their arms around each other as they step back, giving Joy and Sadness unimpeded use of the Control Console.

Now standing alone at the Control Console with their hands on the memory orb, Joy and Sadness slowly begin to see the cracks of the orb mend. They look at each other, Joy is radiant with the happiness of rediscovery while Sadness is clinging to a happy memory whose absence has long left a painful hole.

Bit by bit, the memory orb continues to heal and renew itself with small swirls of blue and yellow light.

We cut back to Riley's face in extreme closeup. We hear a slightly distorted, electronically warbled voice.

"Andersen, this is your final countdown. Do you copy?"

"I… I'm here. I copy." Riley replies in a tone that suggests anything but confidence.

"Roger that. This marks T - Minus 20...19...18...17...16...15..."

Back in the Control Console, Joy and Sadness are both pouring everything they have into the memory orb. As their emotions mix together we see Joy crying with a huge smile and Sadness laughing with tears streaming down her face.

"14...13...12...11...10…"

The memory orb is now flickering wildly with vivid blues and yellows. It is almost completely restored, but time is running out...

With their free hands, Joy and Sadness reach out to each other and lock fingers.

In a sudden dazzling flash, the entire Control Console is filled with a blindingly radiant bluish yellow light.

Anger, Fear and Disgust can only look on in awe.

"9...8...7...6...5…"

Our final shot of Joy and Sadness is them staring each other in the eyes, one hand upon the radiant memory orb, the other clutching that of their friend.

The camera begins to pan slowly out of the Headquarters, moving into the extreme closeup of Riley, and continuing to zoom out further as we hear Joy and Sadness sing through their tears with a bittersweet sincerity.

" _Who's your friend who likes to play?"_

"4...3...2...1...0…"

" _Bing Bong, Bing Bong"_

We have zoomed out of Riley's face now far enough to see that she is wearing an Astronaut's helmet. We hear the rumbling of massive rocket engines. We can see the entire frame shaking. We hear a few garbled phrases on Riley's intercom, but she pays them no heed.

Because most importantly, we see Riley's eyes light up in a moment of epiphany. She immediately flashes a beaming smile, laughs the most childlike and carefree laugh she can remember ever having laughed.

"We have liftoff!" The mission controller shouts, as we hear muffled cheers through Riley's intercom.

The space shuttle begins to ascend while we stay focused on Riley's reaction.

We now hear Riley break into the song through her laughter, through her tears, greeting the lyrics like a long lost best friend.

" _His rocket makes you yell "Hooray!"_

 _Bing Bong, Bing Bong"_

And as the rocket continues to ascend we hear Riley, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear all join together:

" _Who's the best in every way, and wants to sing this song to say_

 _Bing Bong, Bing BONG!"_

After the final "Bing BONG!" the soundtrack goes completely silent.

The sounds of the engines disappear. The shaking of the rocket subsides. The camera slowly zooms out ever so slightly and pans to show Riley in partial profile.

Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear have done it.

Bing Bong has done it.

 ** _They are taking Riley to the moon._**

 _The final thing we hear, cutting through the complete silence of space is Riley crying tears of pure joy._

CUT TO BLACK

ROLL CREDITS


End file.
